The One in Which Natasha Likes to See Tony Squirm
by Mindswander
Summary: Or the story about the time Natasha thinks up the idea to have Thor and Steve pose for a charity calendar and Tony's excited by the prospect.


When Pepper suggested Steve and Thor pose for charity calendars, Natasha's brilliant idea as it turns out, Tony couldn't believe his luck. He was mildly incredulous that he hadn't thought of it first really, especially when he's wanted Thor naked in and around his person for more than a year now. Pepper and Rhodey would be proud. He's shown a whole lot of self-control over someone that plagues his waking hours and dreams.

But Tony isn't going to screw this one up, no.

Nope.

No way. The Avengers are… comfort. That's the best way to describe them. Tony wouldn't have thought it possible with how they started out, but over time they have evolved into a sort of horribly dysfunctional family. When Tony inherited Rhodey he just couldn't believe his luck and then Pepper had come along. He didn't expect more but now, against all odds, he has the avengers too; that's all he has which is more than he expected and he's not ruining it if he can help it. Not this time. So he keeps his hands to himself, but his eyes and mouth, well they're allowed a bit more freedom and this calendar…Tony could just kiss Natasha if he didn't thin she'd punch him in the face.

It was an excellent idea. Good press, good fun, but as Natasha hands Thor a popsicle as he lounges around clad in flag swim trunks waiting to take more July photos, Tony can't help but feel like he's being conned.

"Wipe that sour look off you face," Natasha admonishes as she pushes a popsicle into his hand. He opens it and, bless her, it's blue.

"What Midgardian treat is this?" Thor asks as he rips off the paper to inspect it.

"A popsicle. You'll love it. Trust me," she replies and Tony doesn't miss the little quirk of her lips as she goes to enjoy hers.

After a beat of watching Natasha begin to eat, Thor wastes no time in devouring his and it is a sight. A deliberately attractive sight he's sure.

Tony never did understand why Thor always played up as the innocent and kind of dumb one, because he's far from it; although to be fair even he hadn't always realized when Thor was doing so at first. One of his favorite first clues was the day Thor had been watching Bruce and him agonizing over some machine in the lab. After watching them bicker for half an hour Thor suddenly swooped in to rearrange the parts and tinker a bit until the machine flashed and booted up properly much to their amazement. Before leaving Thor had clasped them both on the shoulder smiling all the while, "The words may not translate directly but the concepts are similar."

In his wake of his exit Tony was left horribly turned on and eternally annoyed, two conditions he was quite familiar with, and Thor really couldn't have made himself more attractive if he tried.

Except now because he was doing it again.

It's easy to miss, the mischief that is, what with the blond hair, the boyish grins, the unfailing charm and his seemingly bottomless well of kindness. It's all the perfect misleading cover for the mischief that lies just beneath the surface (which Tony insists he learned from Loki because otherwise what the hell?) and Tony loves it. If you knew Pepper and Rhodey it's easy to see how caring and sass are two things Tony is attracted to and luckily, or not perhaps, Thor has an abundance of both.

The sass took a while for Tony to find, but the caring was apparent from the moment the avengers were still strangers huddling beneath the same roof. Thor went out of his way to learn what all avengers liked and how he could experience whatever it was with them. Clint liked popcorn and videogames, Natasha enjoyed it when Thor read her Shakespeare, Steve enjoyed exploring the city and movies and Bruce…well Bruce had stymied him at first. He didn't really seem to enjoy Thor's attempts, but Thor was nothing if not persistent until one day Bruce slammed his hand on the counter and demanded why Thor tried so hard to be his friend. Between Thor's wounded look and Bruce's anxious anger Tony couldn't keep looking. He understood Bruce though; after so long a time of people distrusting him (and not trusting himself) the face of Thor's kindness was overwhelming. Thor sounding stricken and ashamed had mumbled his way through an apology. "I am so sorry Dr. Banner . I…I meant no harm. I only wished to know…how…I…I did such a poor job with," and Thor seemed to choke on the next word so much so that Tony stole a glance but quickly wished he hadn't "Loki , I did not want to make a similar poor showing here. I did not intend to upset you." The speech ended abruptly and after a moment of tense silence Thor slunk from the room. As soon as he was out of sight Bruce deflated and leaned heavily against the counter. Tony didn't even need to ask how he felt. And as horrible as it was in that moment, Tony liked him just a little bit more because even the most perfect person seemed to have flaws.

Funny enough, not even two weeks later Thor discovered that Bruce had a penchant for baseball although Tony didn't see the appeal in playing it with someone with those kind of reflexes.

After discovering the loves of the other avengers, it would have been remiss of Thor to not try to discover Tony's and naturally he sniffed out Tony's love of food. He simply adored it. Cooking can be a science and everyone knows science is his first love.

It's unfortunate then that he often forgets about food because of the wiles of science, but Thor doesn't. It started out small, with a chocolate milkshake brought to his lab of all things, before escalating to omelets and being coaxed out of his lab for eggs benedict (Tony is starting to think food is Bruce's other love too because eight out of ten times Bruce follows him out looking positively starved). Once Bruce had even moaned around his fork and asked why Thor was so good at everything. Thor had merely laughed and said he's pretty awful at magic, but Tony disagreed because that lava cake might as well have been. And so he was caring, that much was obvious, and it ticked another box in the positive column for Tony, but when after one grueling day Thor had called him up to the kitchen where he found him shirtless and still cooking, Tony found Thor was a select all. As a plus, his little smirk when he caught Tony staring tied Tony into aroused knots and it was a feat of willpower that he didn't jump Thor right then and there.

Or now.

Thor's eating the popsicle with barely contained glee and the whole room has kind of gone silent as they look on with interest. Even Steve, who had been prepping for his own shoot on the other side of the room is watching closely. If not for Natasha's sudden rough command in Russian that startles Tony, the photographer would have stayed in his glazed eyed stupor. As it is he still blinks a few times before he says something in Russian to Thor. He almost goes to repeat himself in English, but Thor doesn't even miss a beat as he nods and settles in with a model like smoldering gaze that Tony can't fathom where he learned it from. Add the ability to speak all languages and that look to the list of things about Thor that drives Tony wild. A list that's way too long.

Tony elbows Natasha with just a little more force than necessary. "You did this on purpose," he whispers.

She elbows him back and Tony lets out a wheezy breathe. "I'm being altruistic. Don't ruin it or I'll never be generous again."

Tony huffs and shoots her a look before turning his gaze back to Thor. "Do you get off on tor—"Tony stops abruptly as Thor smiles at the camera with a playful look, holding the popsicle out in front him, one leg bent. It's practically perfect.

"Oh," he hears the photography say as the man views the photo he just took. "That is enough for this month," He affirms.

Steve, releasing his lemon popsicle with a little pop, mutters "I don't get how he does that," and Tony nods. He blames it on his princely status.

Thor stretches indecently and stands up before making his way past the others to go change his outfit. "Thank you for the treat, Natasha. It was splendid."

"My pleasure," she replies. "Now let's pick you a Halloween costume." The delight in her voice is practically tangible and when they both wink at him, in sync no less, Tony resists shaking is fist at them and then jumping Thor to kiss his red stained lips in favor of growling "Let's get you suited up Steve." And if he pushes Steve toward the changing room too hard, well, Spangles won't even notice anyway.

The rest of the day flies by amazingly quick and yet Tony is still glad to see all the extra people go.

Settling down into his favorite leather work chair, Tony turns on his computer to indulge in one of the perks of this photo shoot. As per an agreement in the contract, Tony is allowed to peruse the raw files so he can have direct input about the final pictures that get into the calendars. It's not without a little stab of shame that he starts looking after a long, although aesthetically pleasing, day.

After a quick once over of the photos, unsurprisingly Thor's calendar shoot went the way of a sexy prince Calvin Klein model and Steve's more of a how to make people want to marry you right now because you're a perfect house husband route. Where Thor is a muscly Chip and Dale stripper (heaven knows if Thor even knew what he was dressed as), Steve is a doctor. For January, where Thor is dressed in a form fitting Tuxedo holding a flute of champagne, Steve is standing in a driveway about to shovel snow.

_It's domestic porn._

Tony snorts and shakes his head, but he thinks he's never seen two better calendar ideas in his life, except perhaps his last minute idea to do a joint one (it cost him an extra pretty penny but looking through the photos now he can practically feel the people throwing money at him, even if he's not the one keeping it).

His second favorite month from the joint calendar is October. The two of them are dressed in tight X-men suits looking incredibly serious but dashing. Tony was too amused with himself when he suggested these costumes, but it seems to have worked out in an epic breaking of a fourth wall of some kind. Thinking back on it Tony considers it ridiculous how they ever thought they weren't living in a world full of supers.

Turning his attention back to the pictures in front of him, he flips to February and Tony can't help the smile that graces his face at one particular photo. For this month Natasha had picked out heart boxers for Thor and Steve to wear because she has a sense of humor that's bent on making Tony sexually frustrated and a tiny bit jealous. Right before this shot was taken, Natasha had thrown a bucket of Valentine's Day glitter at them and in the mess of them being startled and sparkly, Steve managed to push some of the glitter off of his face except for a heart shaped confetti on the tip of his nose. He was so completely flustered with the whole process that his scrubbing at his face was doing nothing to make it move until Thor let out this gentle laugh. With one hand Thor encircled the wrist of the hand picking at his face and with the other he simply picked off the offending shape while Steve looked up at him sheepishly through his eyelashes. In the image that was captured during that moment the two are a picture perfect of fondness and love which is exactly what Tony was always told Valentine's day was supposed to be about. Smiling to himself one more time he puts a little mark on this file to send it for editing later.

After scrolling through and selecting a few other images (for December it is them sitting surrounded by presents) Tony moves onto the main event; the photos of Thor he had really wanted to look at after watching him all day. There is Thor in a tux, Thor in a hot tub, Thor on a beach. They're all marvelous, but July, of course July, makes him stop. Thor having his way with the popsicle on camera is obscene, quite possibly even soft core porn, so it's totally unusable for a calendar, but it doesn't mean Tony isn't interested. The heat he can feel in his gut right down to his toes is daring him to be more interested and while scrolling to the next image he's so enthralled with it he almost screams when hands land on his shoulders and someone laughs softly in his ear.

"Enjoying yourself, Tony?"

_Fucking Natasha._

"Are you kidding me right now?!" Tony hisses as he turns to glare at her.

"Don't deny your pleasure Tony. It'll build up and who knows what will happen." She wiggles her fingers in a suggestive fashion and Tony is blushing against his will.

"Could you crawl back into whatever assassin hole you crawled out of?" Tony can feel the tips of his ears burning and it's irritating how much she likes making him squirm and how infuriatingly good she is at it.

"A blush a quite fetching on you Tony," Thor chuckles and Tony almost squawks in indignation because when the hell did he show up?

"Would you stop teaching the foreigners your ninja tricks?" Tony mutters in annoyance.

She snickers at him and backs away while Thor approaches Tony and leans over his shoulder to get a look at the picture. Thor's hair tickles his neck and the proximity makes his heart race just a little faster.

After looking at it for a moment Thor only hums and turns his face so his lips ghost across Tony's neck just below his ear. "Do you find me attractive ?"

"Yeah," he blurts before thinking and it's true, but he cringes inwardly at the lack finesse.

"Excellent," he murmurs against his skin. Tony's whole body shudders and this is an awful idea, utterly terrible, but Thor is driving this ship and he doesn't want to get off.

Thor presses a kiss at the base of Tony's neck and spins him around to face him. Tony is white knuckling the arms as he needs to hold onto something or else he might find out he's dreaming.

And where is Natasha anyway, she was just here…_oh_. Thor's hands are on his thighs and they're close enough that if Tony just surges forward they'll kiss and he'd like that.

And though it's terrible of him he does. It's chaste, barely a meeting of lips, but the fire that ignites in his body is almost unbearable. He's done too much waiting already and fists his hands into Thor's open dress shirt to pull him closer, but Thor shifts his face to the side.

Tony's stomach drops and he knows he's pouting petulantly, but he can't bare this and looks at his knees.

"Tony," Thor whispers, "I am not saying no."

When he looks up Thor is smiling at him through the curtain of his hair. "You wish to spend the night with me? And many days after?" He leans closer and nuzzles Tony's neck before nipping at his collar bone.

"God yes," Tony gasps and he's pulling at Thor's shirt so hard he thinks it might rip. He feels guilty and torn and, oh god, so turned on and he should be the one saying no but…

"Let us hope you are singing my praises tonight rather than that of this God I do not know."

"Thor," Tony rasps just to see Thor pull back to shoot him one of those boyish grins he's so fond of and he'll be damned if he says no now so he's not going to.

The hands on Tony's thigh tighten and Tony almost asks what's happening before he's being hoisted over Thor's shoulder.

The blush from before is even fiercer now but Tony is going to enjoy tonight even if it kills him because, you know, it actually might.


End file.
